A great victory for Waymo, Alphabet’s self-driving company. On February 22, the Superior Court of California authorized it to keep certain information about its technology confidential from the general public, in the name of business secrecy.
Waymo does not want to inspire its competitors
Officially Waymo won its lawsuit against the California Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV), but the situation is slightly more complex. Before testing self-driving cars on California roads, all self-driving companies must file with the DMV.
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This is practical information on the safety of the vehicles deployed, on their technologies. The DMV can then submit additional questions before issuing a precious sesame, the authorization to circulate.
It turns out that a third party, a citizen or other can have access to this file. In these situations, DMV authorizes the company to redact certain specific information contained in said file.
It turns out, in the case of Waymo, that the request for information was precisely about the censored lines. The DMV therefore advised the Google subsidiary on its own to file an appeal in court at the end of January.
The request focused on the behavior of the autonomous vehicle in specific conditions, when the steering wheel is returned to a human, how incidents of disengagements and collisions are handled by Waymo.
For the company, this is extremely sensitive information. It could allow a competitor to copy the technologies presented or to evaluate it to position itself vis-à-vis it.
A problem of transparency or a justified request?
Waymo told TechCrunch that having to reveal such trade secrets could undermine the investments made in the company since its creation, within Google in 2009. She also believes that it would have a “chilling effect throughout the industry”.
Waymo’s arguments are quite valid, the technologies cited are very important to assess the quality of the company’s autonomous driving. However, the extension of the scope of business secrecy introduced by the court in Sacramento risks leading to corporate cover-ups related to public safety.
Waymo assured TechCrunch“ We will continue to openly share safety and other data about our self-driving technology and operations, while recognizing that the detailed technical information we share with regulators is not always appropriate to share with the public. “. A promise with accents, relatively worrying for the transparency of the tests of autonomous vehicles.